


13 Going On Kermit

by oonaseckar



Category: 13 Going On 30 (2004), Avengers (Comics), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: 13 Going on 30, Bein' Green (Muppets Song), For Science!, Gen, Jane Foster Loves Science, M/M, Muppets (Muppets), Science, Science Boyfriends, Science Bros, Science Experiments, Science Husbands, Science Project, Summer Camp, science camp
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-20
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-02-25 06:13:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 4,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21871372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oonaseckar/pseuds/oonaseckar
Summary: Bruce is the biggest 13-year-old nerd in the world.  At least, until he meets Tony Stark at summer camp.  It's true Science-Bros love at first sight!  Well, for Bruce, anyhow.For Tony, it takes a little longer.  And a slip forward in time, seventeen years.
Relationships: Bruce Banner & Tony Stark, Bruce Banner/Tony Stark
Comments: 1
Kudos: 27





	1. real science is a constant investigation of the unknown

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter title is from Abhijit Naskar.

Thirteen years old and it's summer and Bruce is in summer camp – science summer camp, after three months' consistent pleading to his parents who wanted to go for something 'well-rounded' and 'athletic' with a severe shortage of report jars and special projects and periodic-table t-shirts. Which is as much to say, he's in heaven.

And hell, too. What with the crush on his best friend. He's _thirteen_. It's _excruciating_. Bruce isn't a big liberal arts type, but these last six weeks since camp began and he first met Tony, he's read more sonnets than Make Magazine instructionals, and that's a first. He's halfway through _Wuthering_ _Heights_ , and he knows exactly where Heathcliff's at. The dude _understands_.

And it's only getting more excruciating, day by day. Two more weeks, and camp is over, and then so is two months of sharing a dorm cabin with Tony. Two of the greatest months ever: clicking immediately, on the first day, building a turbo-charged engine for one of the rowboats down on the lake, sneaking out with Happy and Sam that first midnight to power around and splash each other and get becalmed on the tiny island in the middle when they ran out of juice and had to swim to shore instead. (So he'd had an anxiety attack kick in halfway back to shore, swallowed half the lake and then tried to breathe it too, and wound up with the guys running for the nearest sleeping student counselor for some casual lifesaving first-aid. So what? It had all been awesome, and just part of the fun of summer-camp! Yeah, nearly dying and official 'rents phone-calls and having to beg to be allowed to stay for the rest of the summer – all part of the fun!)

Since then it's been the wildest ride, the most fun he's ever had, and the deepest connection he can ever imagine. Tony gets him, really _gets_ him, and he's pretty sure he gets Tony, too. The other kids are great: but ScienceBros are _forever_. (Especially once Tony talks his Dad into having the batch of logo t-shirts made up.) Next year at camp, all the visits to Tony's parents in New York that they have planned, the year after and the decade after that and college and post-grad and starting up a tech company together and everything they have planned...

Bruce can almost feel the threat of another panic attack, at the slightest threat of a thought that maybe it won't automatically pan out exactly the way they've visualized it, that just because they've got a five-year and ten-year and twenty-year plan doesn't mean it's guaranteed. But sure! Sure it'll all pan out!

Sure it will. As long as he can get through Tony's birthday – today – without declaring undying love, and be casual enough about giving him the present he's been working on in collusion with a couple of the student counselors for the past couple of weeks... It's high stakes. Bruce gets too emotional, he knows this. Playing it cool isn't something that comes naturally to him. It's just that, in all his thirteen years on the planet up to this point, he's never felt this kind of bond with anybody. He's used to being the dork, the geeky kid with the weird hobbies and twenty extra pounds that he can't seem to shake off. (Exercise is fine, it's great. It's just such a _time_ - _suck_ , when he could be building an autoclave or sequencing a frog genome instead.)

He has school-buddies at his private prep school with similar interests, even. Up to a point. It's always up to a point, until he's too focused and single-minded, until he's taking it too far and “Jeez, Bruce, let's do something else, what about meeting up with some girls, what about skateboarding? You know, there's more to life, right?”

Up until Tony, anyhow. Tony is the first person he can fall asleep next to, whispering about unstable nuclei and artificial intelligence... And then wake up, and the first thing out of either of their mouths is taking up the last sentence right where they left off. Tony _gets_ it.


	2. opinion in the absence of evidence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bruce isn't jealous, of Pepper. AT ALL.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is Michael Crichton.

(Tony more than gets it: he may actually be more passionate about science than Bruce is. Bruce hadn't known it was possible, frankly. He's also pretty, and dark-eyed, with his Italian ancestry, and has started on a growth spurt that has him taller than Bruce, and genetically blessed, handsome, slim with a gathering sturdiness around the shoulders and haunches. He could be getting a lot more attention from the girls than he's bothering with, right now. But it's still all about science, for the time being.)

Bruce notices it, the pretty. He can't not. But he's _trying_ not. It doesn't seem like a good idea to make things more complicated than they already are.

Anyway. It's Tony's birthday, and he's built the greatest present, and all Bruce has to do is make everything perfect. No pressure. There's cake in the dorm, and people invited in from other cabins, outer circle. The counselors only stay for the cake-cutting, and trust them not to burn the place down once that's done and the candles are out. (Who are these fools, and why have so many kids been entrusted to them _in loco parentis?_ )

Of course it's an equal-opportunities, mixed-sex science camp. Betty's there: Bruce loves Betty, she's awesome. If he liked girls like that, he would like Betty like that. There's other girls, too: Pepper and Amy Farrah Fowler and Wanda.

Of course they start up with Seven Seconds In Heaven. Hey, they may _en masse_ and as a body be nerds, but they are self-respecting nerds who know what goes down at a thirteen-year-old's b-day celebration. It's a matter of pride, and participating in your cohort's rites of passage. And having been banned from constructing bungee jump and trying it out from the gully over at the river-mouth half a mile east. Playing Seven Seconds is probably nearly as exciting.

Of course Tony goes first, the birthday boy, and they send Pepper in after him. She comes out with her peach lip-gloss smeared, smirking, and there are jeers as they catch her rearranging her bright auburn hair to be much more disarranged than it had been. But it's good-natured, and their shared collusion in temporarily playing at being misbehaving regular kids is a holiday away from the fever for knowledge that grips them the rest of the time.

Then it's Betty who takes a go, and Bruce figures next Amy and then Wanda. He's not jealous, he's not _very_ jealous, the soreness in his chest is probably just the side-effect of his medication for hayfever. He's not going to start fussing about that. Tony might begin to think that he can't keep up, that he needs to find a friend who's getting interested in girls and motorized dirt bikes. And he distracts himself anyway, by thinking about his own turn in the cupboard to come. Which is enough to induce a panic attack all by itself. But it's better than thinking about Tony and Betty – and then seven minutes are up, and Betty erupts from the cupboard giggling, her cheeks bright-flushed and Bruce likes her, and he hates her.

Tony chases her out, a little bit more hyper than usual, and they fall over the display table and then into the small pile of presents that's stacked up against the cabin wall. Amidst the shrieking, Sam grabs a cylindrical gift-wrapped monstrosity with bows at each end out of their way – it's his contribution – and yells, “Let's do the presents! Before you bust 'em all!”

And Bruce feels the relief flood all over him, although really it's worse, because it only puts things off to a later moment, with more time for anticipation and dread to build up. Pepper grabs the smallest parcel and jumps up on the bed, shrieking. “Mine first!” she squeals, pointing at Tony. “First kiss, first gift!” Tony gets up there with her, and somehow he bounces fit to bust the mattress while also unwrapping what proves to be a model Captain America, and he hugs her and runs around the cabin showing everyone what display positions Cap can be swiveled into.


	3. the fever of first love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Birthday presents for the birthday boy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is Daphne du Maurier.

Then it's one gift after another after another – a scientific calculator from Sam, a Sega console from Pepper –- and Happy puts a Talking Heads CD in the player and and the pandemonium level goes down as the volume level goes up. Bruce pours Mountain Dew down his throat, because when he's buzzed enough he almost feels calm, like a fan that's whirring so fast it seems immobile. He feels calm. He feels nuts. They only have two weeks left, less than that.

It's his present last, because it's the biggest. Tony makes a big fuss about it, bigger than for anybody else, and it stands unwrapped for minutes because he's too busy punching Bruce in the bicep and asking him if he got Tony a Spice Girl like he asked for, seeing as it's life-size and everything. “If it's Sporty I'm exchanging her, just so you know, dude. It's a sexbot I'm after, not someone to bust my ass and make me run twenty circuits every morning!” The punching becomes hugging, and then they remember that they're both thirteen years old now, they're manly dudes, they're _men_. They pull apart quickly, and Bruce is giddy with the sense-memory of a slightly sweaty excitable Tony in his arms, that much body heat and nervy energy densely packed into his neat lithe form, and he always wants to hold Tony just damn _still_ for a moment and has to hold back on it all the time.

It's enough to blot out the sex-bot remark, because _dammit Tony why d'you have to be so sharp and onto everything all the time?_ Bruce has a feeling his exciting surprise isn't going to be all that surprising after all –- and he should have known it, because there's only so much you can do to disguise the shape of a humanoid-style three-quarters-life-size robot. (It's not a sex-bot. Like he's going to give Tony a sex-bot. There's accepting your natural place in someone's life, and then there's actively snuffing out your aspirations before you even get a chance to be shut down and gently rejected.)

But oh well. As long as he likes it, as long as he's happy. Bruce's folks are Vermont-liberal earthy spiritual types, he had non-religious home-schooling till he was eight and self-directed learning, and they've had him counselled over every little issue since he was about five. He should be the most well-adjusted kid in the galaxy. He's vaguely aware from counselling sessions and woodsy meditation retreats that maybe it's not great that his star is hitched so firmly to Tony's, that his happiness hangs on someone else's and can be dragged in the mud, with him helpless to do a damn thing about it. But he's thirteen. Maybe in love. How is he supposed to act middle-aged sensible about it?

Tony tears off the wrapping paper with gay disregard for the fact that Bruce has put about eighteen separate layers on there, less in order to frustrate the giftee, more in a failed attempt to disguise and render ambiguous the definitely humanoid shape of the gift. But as the severely minimalist gun-metal brushed steel of the hemispheric crown is revealed, he goes slower, and –- for Tony –- gets hushed. (Bruce hasn't attempted to make JARVIS –- it's called JARVIS –- actually resemble a person. Part of the thrill is the otherworldly inhuman aspect of robotic systems, for him, for Tony.) He's praying Tony likes it, that's all. Especially considering what he's spent on it –- about two-thirds of thirteen years' worth of squirreling away birthday money, little legacies from distant aunts, lawn-mowing money... everything. About two-thirds of his net worth, meager as it was, has gone into this present. He's keeping quiet about that. He might as well declare duty, fidelity and love here and now, maybe Katherine's speech from _The Taming of the Shrew,_ with an audience, as let that cat out of the bag. ' _Such duty as the subject owes the Prince.._.'

“Brucie. My man,” Tony says, hushed. He's stopped tearing off the paper: he's just gazing at the end result of six weeks of co-operative work with every student counselor Bruce could co-opt into The Project. “Is this a...”


	4. how did it get so late so soon?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Presents are all very well. Kissing games are something else entirely, for Bruce.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from Dr Seuss.

And then he gets interrupted. By JARVIS. “Sir,” it announces, politely, and with the first word the plastic cover over its visi-lamps lights up. Okay, they didn't have to go there, Bruce did give into the weakness of anthropomorphism to the extent of placing them so they resemble eyes mixed with headlights. “May I assist you in anything?” JARVIS continues. Tony has been kneeling on the bed as he rips the wrapping off his presents, is still kneeling upright to get at Bruce's.

He falls off the bed.

Mass giggles all around, then, and a lot of shrieking as they drag him up, Pepper and Amy and Sam foremost. Bruce is too shy, trying to work out if his big idea has gone down well. He hangs back, hangdog, rubbing his face and shuffling his feet. Summer swelters, he's sweating through his tee, the nervousness isn't helping.

Everyone's talking at JARVIS, trying to get it to respond even though it's pre-programmed to only respond to Tony and anyone Tony explicitly approves as an acquaintance for it. (Tony as strict and disapproving dad: mind, cue _boggle_.) Even Tony himself can't get near, as he co-operates in being picked up off the floor and staggers a little on his feet. But it makes it easier for Bruce to get close, which he does, shyly ducking down his head as he asks, “So.... You like it? JARVIS?”

Tony's a huggy guy, so the bear-hug Bruce gets squashed into is really no surprise. It is a bit suffocating, rib-crushing, more vehement that usual. Then he gets let go a bit quicker than he was expecting, as Tony dives into the crush and beats off all of his buddies who are excited and up close enough that you'd think they were trying to dance or make out with JARVIS, not explore his fascinating and complex circuitry. (Which they'd also better not do. Bruce has soldered enough circuit boards in these past six weeks to have permanent burn-scars on his fingers and a bit of RSI. He hasn't just shelled out a lot of cash, he's _suffered_ for this present.)

With a bit of assistance from Bruce, Tony fights off the crowding throng, though, makes 'em all retreat and curl up on the bed like a bunch of screeching monkeys. That's so he and Tony can all the better put JARVIS through his paces, he can show off a little bit with all the little routines and curlicues he's programmed in, everything this bot amongst bots can do. After a little spontaneous dancing, moshpit pogoing and geek-shriek running around, half of the gang have almost been sick with laughing, and and calm down in little heaving heaps. Bruce feels emotionally worked up, because Tony does seem pleased. And Tony, he takes a step forward towards him, a step back, forward and back, and then decisively forward again. Gives him one of those meaningless punches that mean an awful lot, for Tony, and mutters. “You're the best, man. The _best_. You know, it's... You know our old butler was called Jarvis, right? Yeah, 'course you knew that.”

(Bruce had known that. He'd also known –- read between the lines of everything Tony worked not to say –- that before dying of an aneurysm, he'd been a lot closer to a dad, or at least a caring and concerned uncle, than Tony's own father. He'd been a little uncertain about the tribute, wondering if Tony might find it insensitive and crass. But evidently he's hit the right note there.)

Then they get caught up in the play-acting of the other guys, with Happy and Wanda jiving around the cabin, Sam jumping up and down on the bed and onto the display table, just barely not destroying anything. Not that anyone's forgetting about JARVIS in a hurry, and Tony keeps stepping up to him and patting him proprietorially, muttering in his audio filtering component, grinning at Bruce.

Then Pepper, bouncing on the bed and grabbing a cola from out of Amy's hand, pipes up. “What about Seven Minutes?” she asks. “We were playing Seven Minutes, remember?”

They had been, indeed. Which is something that Bruce would be quite as happy to forego, frankly. But he doesn't get the chance, because everyone acclaims the reminder as the very essence of genius. Not only that, but–-


	5. if life were easy, it wouldn't be difficult

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seven Minutes in HELL. For Bruce.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is from Kermit the Frog.

“Bruce next! Bruce's turn!” Amy pipes up –- probably to evade cupboard duty herself, seeing as she's for it if they go alphabetically. “Tony's best friend, he should go next!”

And she gets away with it because she uses that title for him, so that Bruce is too busy flushing up a bit and not being able to look at anybody –- it's been six weeks, that's all, after all. That's pretty quick to be officially anyone's best buddy. He's a lot too busy, not looking overwhelmed and distracted about it in front of Tony, to put up a really effective protest and defense against being volunteered against his better judgement.

And that's how come he finds himself shut into a poky little cupboard with practically no ventilation, no window, and a bucket and mop and broken vacuum cleaner, waiting for chance or the malicious votes of the gang to decide who's supposed to be in here snickering and feeling him up.

Bruce closes his eyes and counts until the door opens, because that's something that always soothes his nerves even if he doesn't go for something slinky and abstruse like pi backwards and delivered in a 3/2 time signature, or naming the stars in his favorite constellations. Maybe he keeps them closed, even when he does hear the creak of the door, and feels a thirteen-year-old size weight settle down beside him on the shelf that's serving them as a love-seat. He is _not_ too afraid to open his eyes. This wouldn't be the first time he's kissed somebody, at least. (It's pretty close to the first time, though.)

A hand pats his knee, friendly. “Hey there,” a voice says. Sam's voice.

 _Sam's_ voice? Bruce's eyes ping open like a microwave, _brrr_ - _ping_. Yeah, it's Sam. Bruce is too startled to speak for a moment. He just stares a lot, at Sam's narrow handsome face, that begins to look a bit concerned at the intensity of Bruce's survey.

“Hey, is this okay, man?” he asks, after a moment. “I mean, I assumed you'd be cool with it and all when Pepper poked me in the back and shoved me in here. You're not a huge closet homophobe or something, right? Christ, I _hope_ you're not a huge closet homophobe. Say something, man, I'm starting to get worried that you're going to rage out and smack me for touching your knee or something. Are we cool?"

Sam has to be the only out and proud thirteen-year-old in the camp, or at least the only one that Bruce is aware of. (He has his suspicions about at least a couple of the kids here, and Amy Farrah Fowler for sure makes way too many near-the-knuckle jokes about her crush on student-counselor Penny for it to be quite a joke. Yeah, there are a few closeted students beside himself, but Sam's the only one who puts it right out there with a dismissive shrug and says, “Yeah, so what?” Of course, his hyper-liberal New York professional parents probably make that easier than it would be for a lot of kids. But Bruce can't pull the bigotry card on that one, because his own parents are certified Whole-Earth-shopping, Democrat-voting, Thoreau-quoting Oregon liberals themselves, and if his immediate school and social environment is a little more tensely conservative, in parts, than Sam probably usually experiences, still it doesn't lessen any of the respect Bruce feels for him about the subject. He's well enough aware that no-one has an actually _easy_ ride, coming out.

And now he... now he's _in_ the closet, har-de-har, with Bruce. With an anxious face and a look that suggests he's feeling he's made a major error and is about to bolt any minute. Which Bruce feels bad about, except that isn't most of what's worrying him. He can feel just how his face is crumpled up with sudden anxiety, as he asks, slow and stumbling and aware of the potential for offence here, “I, yeah, we're cool. It's just that--“ Well, there's no neutral, offence-free way to say it. “Why did they send _you_ in here?” He's stumbling, and probably stumbling over a cliff of social impropriety at any moment. “Does everybody think I'm gay?”


	6. it isn't easy being green

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ...or gay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from Kermit the Frog.

Boy, some things take some spitting out. His face is burning red-hot. He knows he doesn't want to imply that _gay=bad._ He's not sure he's succeeded, though.

And Sam looks more stricken than offended, at the question. “Oh. Oh hell. No, no dude! No-one's trying to, to cast aspersions or anything like that!” And he pauses, like he's struggling with a particularly gnarly and gristly bit of internal cogitation, trying to work out if that last sentence constitutes internalized homophobia or not. But the issue's too urgent, and he pushes on past it. “They're just kidding around, that's all! It was Tony's idea, he said you'd think it was funny, that you'd be cool with it, and Pepper, you know how she does Tony's dirty work and I, I, I feel pretty much like this is the worst idea _ever_ right now. You want me to just get out of here and send Betty in?”

Sam looks more totally crestfallen and distressed than Bruce can remember ever seeing him. It's bad, and horrible, he's a _bad horrible (and possibly homophobically gay and dishonest)_ friend. He'd say pretty much anything, right now, to put this right, to wipe the expression of wounded unhappiness off Sam's nice friendly face.


	7. for the sympathy of one living being

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is from Frankenstein, Mary Shelley.

"No, don't do that," he says, impulsively. Though he doesn't know why, doesn't know what he can do to make this better. Then, because engineering solutions is what he does, who he _is_ , right –- he _does_ know. He knows _exactly_. And hey, it's not like it's any _hardship_. He loves Tony: Tony absolutely has his name on the deeds of Bruce's heart. But Sam is great. In a more platonic way, he probably loves Sam too, when there's a little of his fevered teenage brain free to think about it. He's probably watched too many old _noir_ films, late nights with his casually permissive parents. His idea of _seductive_ makes him want to laugh and wince and tear his face off, the moment he's patted the seat beside him and looked up at Sam through his lashes, where Sam is still stood, irresolute. He keeps going, though. He's _committed_ to this. "We're good," he assures Sam. "Why don't you sit down again, we can talk about it. Or _not_ talk about it."

Sam hesitates, still a little stressed, flustered. Then he relaxes, smiles. Sits down again, and smiles at Bruce again, but differently, much differently. Wow, they're up _close_ now.

His brown eyes are beautiful. It makes Bruce's nerves jangle. If it were just up to him, then he'd probably hesitate and procrastinate long enough to ruin the moment. Hovering forever on the top diving board, wondering if _now_ is the moment to leap… Luckily, Sam is a more decisive kind of tech-bod in training. Surely a future test pilot or astronaut, fearlessly changing the course of human history. This is where Bruce's mind is anxiously wandering, as Sam pulls him in and kisses him. And then, it's all easy. The rest of the time speeds by just like _that_. With just some idling process in the back of Bruce's mental processor, puttering away, not wholly engaged. So that when they're startled by a sharp rap on the door, and a yell from Wanda –- "Don't get each other pregnant! Time's up!" –- and they slowly move apart, the processor has moved on from test pilots to -- obviously -- _Top Gun._ "You can ride my tail anytime," he says to Sam, solemn, straight-faced. And they grab each other by the arms, snigger like they're still dumb kids. Possibly they are, yet. Sam keeps a hold of him, scans Bruce's face, and ruffles his hair _hard_. "Hey, if Pepper can get away with it," he shrugs.

Bruce feels great. Nervous, but great.


	8. Chapter 8

Maybe it’s crazy, maybe it’s presumptuous. Maybe it’s just the effect of one of the greatest _7-minutes-in-heaven_ makeout sessions oi _all time._ (Sure, maybe Bruce is biased. And has limited experience for comparison. But he’s pretty damn sure all the same. He’s still feeling the _glow_.)

But now seems like _the moment._ Sure, it’s kind of early as announcements go, if you’re taking emotional and sexual maturity into account. (Although of course, Sam came out _last year._ Last year!)

Isn’t it better to get it over, though? After all… get it over with _now_ , and he’ll never have to worry about it again. Or at least, he’ll never have to wonder if _now is the moment,_ or if it wouldn’t be rather better to leave it till next semester, next year.

To wonder about how Tony will react. Because Tony will already _know_. It will be a _done deal._


	9. Chapter 9

There will never be a better, easier time than now. The perfect opportunity has presented itself. Only a dummy would pass it up.

That explains it: at least in his head. All of that, packed into a bare few seconds: and then it’s decided. He isn’t going to come _skulking_ out of the utilities cupboard behind Sam, blushing and looking furtive, shifty and awkward. Nor is he going to lurch out with a pained, embarrassed expression, and demand to know what _that_ was all about, like. any other defensive repressed no-homophobe.

 _Naw_. Action catches a hold of him: he doesn’t even really have to think about it, it’s super-easy. Gliding, like a dream, he slips out of the little cupboard-room right behind Sam. His heart is thundering, because yeah, it’s somehow easy, but…


	10. Chapter 10

It’s also so _momentous_. This is a moment he’ll remember all his life, he knows it. He’ll remember it when he’s like, _forty_ , and (hopefully) has tenure, and a bunch of published peer-reviewed articles, and _kids_ , even, for God’s sake. He’s going to remember _forever_.

But. He hasn’t done the end-of-year talent show every year since third grade for nothing. He smiles big, and flings his arm around Sam’s shoulder, as they jump out at the rest of the gang. Grins around at all of them, through the shrieks and giggles and whoops. They aren’t any less wild and hyper than seven minutes ago. But Bruce can’t focus on any one of them. He's barely aware of them all, except as a noisy amorphous mass.

He's only aware of Tony, standing oddly quiet at the center of the gang.


	11. Chapter 11

And yet, he can’t look at him at all, not one glance.

It’s Happy who cuts out the whistling and pseudo-sexy moans and _oo-oooh_ s first, and just says, “Hey dudes, how was it?” Leering, of course, grinning and leering.

And that is Bruce’s chance to back down, back off, disavow. Be the greatest pussy jerk-ass the world has ever known.

Without looking, he feels like Tony’s eyes are burning a couple of singed pits into his face. But he’s certainly imagining it. Isn’t there a study that demonstrates that ninety percent of peripheral vision phenomena are generated in the forebrain, i.e. complete fabulation by the subconscious? Yeah. That.


	12. Chapter 12

Light. Casual, that’s totally the way to play it. “Awesome. Irrepressibly unforgettably awesome.” And he turns his head, and kisses Sam’s cheek, where he’s, wow, still up pretty damn _close_. He just, in that same moment, hopes and prays that Sam is cool with it. He’ll be cool with it, right? In a rushing gulp of breath, he adds, “All I want to know, though — how did any of you complete assholes _know_?!”

Still grinning big, fronting it out, looking at anyone but Tony. Sam is — thank god — laughing, and gives him a slightly painful one-armed hug. And the rest of them?

Happy and Natasha — high-fiving, then apparently _settling a bet_ , five bucks changing hands. Truly, assholes! And Jane and Loki, pop-eyed, startled — then a quick attempt to look unfazed, blasé, like they knew it all along.


End file.
